When I first met Brigit in journey work, it was with my Druid group, Cedar Light Grove, several years ago. Morrighan was there also, but it was Brigit who placed a tunic over me that had many symbols on it. I didn't understand its meaning then.

I began my journey about 10 minutes before sundown. This was to be my first flame tending, and I was very excited. Something about it seemed so ancient, so powerful, and so familiar. I am very new to Brighid, well, new in my awareness of her, somehow I feel she's been with me for much longer. I walked outside with my lantern to the circle of stones built to honor my ancestors, I placed the lantern in the center. I sat for a minute, with my mother, as we watched the sun go down. I said my oath, the genealogy of Brighid, and lit the flame. I felt honored, and blessed to be keeping her ancient flame.

This is my first official flametending, though I am a hobbyist blacksmith and my smithy has been dedicated to Brigid almost since I first worked hot metal with a hammer in 2002. A friend brought her to my attention about a year after I started smithing and it felt very natural to invite Brigid to join me my work. I considered every lighting of the forge to be a tending of her flame, and I even used a candle contagioned with the Kildare flame to light the burner a few times.
I'm currently in graduate school studying public history (I feel it's her influence as a giver of words) and the job I left to pursue my advanced degree was in the medical billing field. I also find myself in the frequently uncomfortable space of impromptu counselor for people who feel the need to vent. I consider every minute of both of those to be a sacrifice to her healer aspect-- I really didn't enjoy appealing insurance denials, and it's awkward at best to have perfect strangers just start rattling off their problems as if I have answers. But I genuinely feel it was the tradeoff for the gifts she'd given me.

I was born as I flew from the flint down through the air into the straw in a bowl many hundreds of years ago. The bowl was carried by a woman to a lamp and I have been tended by women ever since, a constant parade of ever changing and ever the same women, always 19 at a time.

I was born as I flew from the flint down through the air into the straw in a bowl many hundreds of years ago. The bowl was carried by a woman to a lamp and I have been tended by women ever since, a constant parade of ever changing and ever the same women, always 19 at a time.

An hierophany in its most basic definition is a manifestation of the sacred.
A more extreme form is when a Divinity manifests itself in something. But it is more than that. Not only that something is imbued with the Divinity, the Divinity incorporates itself, embodies itself, expresses itself, becomes that thing.
And so it is with Fire and Brighid. Fire is an Hierophany of Brighid.
Let me tell you how I came to that conclusion.